LAS VEGAS - John Alessio choked out fellow UFC veteran Pete Spratt in the night's main event, and Kim Couture was on the wrong end of a unanimous decision in her professional MMA debut, during Friday's "Free for All, A Night of Combat" event.

The fights took place at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of UNLV in Las Vegas as part of a combination boxing/MMA event.

Approximately 18,000 tickets were distributed for the night of free fights.

After four boxing bouts, the MMA portion of the night kicked off with a five-fight card.

From what I've seen in pictures I think Kim got owned in that fight. Bloodied up and and expected broken jaw! Damn! I wonder if she's gonna want to fight again after that whipping. Because in all honesty I thought her fighting was a gimmick anyway. I hope she heals well though and I wish her luck in whatever she does.

As for Alessio beating Spratt, thats a big win for him. Now I want to see Larson/Alessio II. Come on WEC, and put that fight on the main card this time.

jlock003

6/21/08 3:53:47PM

Damn! Bad night overall for x-treme couture. They are gonna have to see better production out of that gym overall if they want respect. Sounds like a good night for the unlv campus though.

MMAcca

6/23/08 4:21:42PM

Vegas Hybrid Show A Qualified Success

The Las Vegas Sun has an excellent piece detailing the Boxing-MMA hybrid card that took place Friday night in Las Vegas at the Thomas and Mack Center. All in all, they seemed to be happy with the attendance:

Half the Mack was empty, because when tickets are free, people are a lot more likely to leave them attached to the refrigerator with a magnet or in a desk drawer. But half the Mack was full, too. The official tally was 8,962, which is just 5,000 fewer spectators than the Tampa Bay Rays drew Friday night, and they’re only a game out of first place.

The article also did an excellent job of giving you the business angles and how the show the show ended up making money without depending on the gate to offset costs.

In this case, by giving tickets away, Libonati created a nice crowd, which met the needs of promoter Artie Pelullo, ESPN, Channel 13 News, Lotus Broadcasting and his other partners. Each received 1,000 free tickets of their own, to be distributed among the people with whom they do business. In return, Libonati got some free publicity.

To help underwrite the show, Libonati brought on a fledgling company called MLSE — Major League Sports Entertainment — which wants to introduce its brand to Las Vegas. On Friday night, MLSE shook hands with about 9,000 spectators, so it can be assumed its needs were met.

Fans who wanted a free ticket had to access UNLVtickets.com to get one, so the home office was happy.

And the suite holders who pay good money to watch the Rebels play basketball in comfort got a little more bang for their bucks. Twenty of the 30 suites were occupied Friday night.

Oh yeah, I almost forget the fans. Do you know how many $6 beers you can afford when you don’t spend money to get in?

In the end, Libonati said the T&M will break even on the boxing-MMA card, probably even make a little money. He’ll make a lot more in the long run through business relationships that were made or maintained.

In our earlier piece on this card we illustrated the creative ways they could make a buck on this card, and Libonati did even one better with the money from the MLSE group.